It was little more than three months ago that a horrified Stephanie Long watched as her daughter, Amber, was shot and killed by robbers in Philadelphia’s North Liberties neighborhood. “Life without Amber – it’s not supposed to work that way,” Long said this week.

She's channeling her grief into helping to raise money for a scholarship in Amber's name, and advocating for the group Handbags 4 Peace, which promotes street-smart awareness and self-defense training for women. The men who accosted Stephanie and Amber Long on Jan. 19 as they walked to their car in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties section, and the man who shot Amber when she wouldn’t let go of her handbag, remain at large. That her daughter’s killers have not been caught, despite police releasing to the media video surveillance footage of the attack and getaway car, is a point of pain for Stephanie Long.

She says she’s impressed by the hard work of the Philadelphia police. A reward of up to $30,000 has been offered for information leading to an arrest. But so far, there is no update or additional details to release on the Amber Long homicide, said Officer Leeloni Palmiero, a spokeswoman for Philadelphia police.

“I’m dismayed and disgusted by the people who know who it is and haven’t come forward,” she said. “There are people who know who it is. ... That they consider that’s worth hiding is dismal to me.

“If he can shoot a girl he hasn’t met just because she defies him for a second, what will he do to someone else? He can kill, he can hurt, and that’s unacceptable to me. I don’t know why it’s acceptable to those who know where he is."

Honoring Amber's memory

A few weeks after Amber’s death, Stephanie Long said she called Philadelphia University, from which Amber graduated in 2011 with a degree in architecture, about setting up a scholarship fund.

“They were already on it,” Stephanie said.

About $8,000 has been raised, including $1,600 Stephanie Long raised through sale of Amber’s artwork, and her donation of a percentage of sales at her shop,Goldcrafter’s Corner, 5301 Jonestown Road, Harrisburg.

Her goal is to help raise $25,000, the amount needed for an endowed scholarship. To contribute, click here.

Stephanie said she’s been told another scholarship has been established at the Arts Business Institute. It was the institute’s Buyers Market, at the Philadelphia Convention Center, that had drawn Stephanie Long to Philadelphia the weekend of Amber’s death.

After Amber’s death, Stephanie Long said she had to take a break from her business for a while. She put herself to work making prints of the art that her daughter left behind.

“To me, she was really a phenomenal artist,” she said. But at only 26, “She didn’t have a chance to produce that much.”

An artist herself, Stephanie Long even finished a few of her daughter’s partially completed drawings.

One, a French streetscape, she calls a “mother and daughter” drawing. Amber had finished just half of the pen-and-ink sketch. Stephanie Long added the color.

Stephanie Long also has created a website where Amber’s artwork can be viewed and her life is celebrated. Amber’s death also was the catalyst for the formation of a Philadelphia-based advocacy group called Handbags 4 Peace. They contacted Stephanie to ask for her support, and she agreed.

“Anything that helps other mothers not become as sad as I am,” she said.

Amber, who lived in the residential Passyunk section of Philadelphia, always felt safe in the city, Stephanie Long said.

“I think about things differently now,” she said.

Handbags 4 Peace promotes self-defense for girls and women, and Stephanie Long is heading to Philadelphia on May 3 for one of their workshops.

“They should be offered at universities everywhere,” Stephanie Long said, and even in high schools. “I truly think a little bit of self-defense is something every girl should get.”

“I learned what Amber coulda, shoulda done,” she said. “If you are aware, the odds are much different.”

A second woman was shot and killed Feb. 2 in a purse robbery in West Philadelphia, Stephanie Long said. And there have been others.

“There were so many murders in Philly this year. There was another mother and son killed the same day as Amber,” Stephanie Long said.

The aftermath The purse Amber purchased at a thrift shop for $14 that weekend was found in a field five blocks from where Amber was shot.

“They didn’t even take the cash out of it,” Stephanie Long said.

Stephanie Long’s purse, which another robber had pulled from her shoulder, ended up in an unclaimed postal collection point in Atlanta. It too had been tossed by the robbers, and was found by a junk collector, who took cash and a cell phone out of it and put it in a mailbox.

A spring cleanup was held the first weekend in April in the Northern Liberties neighborhood where Amber was shot, and the participants gave Stephanie a book in which they wrote condolences.

“They felt strongly about Amber’s murder and wanted to help,” Stephanie Long said.

There’s a mural of big yellow flowers in the neighborhood, and she said she wants to plant daffodils to come up next year.

“She was doing very well there – she was very happy,” Stephanie Long said of her daughter’s life in Philadelphia, where she worked for Nest Architecture, which is owned by Kip Kelly of North Cornwall Township.

Stephanie Long’s loss cannot be assuaged. She recalls planning a mother-daughter trip to France with her daughter. A huge fan of “I Love Lucy,” Amber gave her mom a mayonnaise jar for Christmas, and jokingly labeled it “the Ladies Overseas Aid Fund,” based on an episode in which Lucy and Ethel try to raise funds to accompany Ricky to Europe.